# Council Environmental Quality Committee - February 15, 2011 > Auto-transcribed civic record · February 15, 2011 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/1883 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/1883?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2011-02-15 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 11,124 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Environmental Quality Committee met on February 15, 2011, at 1:00 p.m., with Blues presiding. The committee heard five informational presentations during the meeting, covering the Environmental Quality Transition Report, Environmental Policy Report, Environmental Commission Background, Proprietary Funds Financials, and Items Referred to Committee. The committee took one motion and vote during the session and heard four public comments. All agenda items were presented for informational purposes. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on February 15, 2011: * Blues * Stinnett * Gorton * Farmer * Martin * Henson * Lane No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions **Motion to Adjourn** A motion to adjourn the meeting was made by Blues and seconded by Henson [timestamp: 1:33:06]. The motion passed by voice vote. The following members voted in favor of adjournment: - Blues - Stinnett - Gorton - Farmer - Martin - Henson - Lane No members voted against the motion. There were zero abstentions. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting addressed two significant financial allocations for energy and facility improvement projects: **Energy Conservation Projects** The government approved $2.7 million in grant funding from the Department of Energy stimulus money to support energy conservation projects. These funds will support initiatives designed to improve energy efficiency across designated facilities and programs. **Building Retrofit Program** An appropriation of $1.1 million was allocated for a government building retrofit program using grant monies. The funding will support improvements at the Black and Williams Community Center and Dunbar Center, with these facilities identified as recipients of the retrofit program resources. ## Public Comment Four speakers addressed the council with comments on environmental and administrative matters. **Emma Tibbs** [timestamp: 0:09:22] presented the Environmental Quality Transition Team's report. She highlighted immediate "day one" issues including an inefficient hiring process, lack of communication with the mayor's office, and the need to reinstate director meetings. Tibbs emphasized the importance of government oversight in development plan reviews and praised existing technology initiatives such as GPS routing and EnergyCap. **Paul Swoveland** [timestamp: 1:03:55] reported on the Environmental Commission's activities and expressed concern over low membership. He noted that many applications had been ignored in the past. Swoveland requested reinforcement of the commission's charter and better administrative support to increase public engagement and volunteer participation. **Helen Weisinger** [timestamp: 1:22:04] shared her efforts to preserve and restore Preston Cave Spring, emphasizing its historical significance. She requested periodic cleanups and public recognition of the site, and asked for its inclusion in broader park maintenance and environmental care initiatives. **Council Member Kaye** [timestamp: 1:29:50] suggested that the administration review backlogged applications for the Environmental Commission. Kaye recommended transitioning to an online application system to improve accessibility and responsiveness to applicants. ## Appointments Paul Swoveland was appointed to the Environmental Commission. ## Contested Items **Environmental Commission Membership and Application Backlog** The committee engaged in a heated discussion regarding the Environmental Commission's persistent membership challenges and delays in processing applications. The core issue centered on the Commission's low membership levels and the backlog of unprocessed applications, which members characterized as a result of administrative neglect. Committee members expressed significant concern about the situation, emphasizing that the slow application processing and difficulty in recruiting new members were undermining the Commission's effectiveness. The discussion reflected frustration with the lack of responsiveness in handling applications and the failure to actively pursue recruitment efforts. Members called for immediate action to address both the recruitment challenges and the application processing backlog. The emphasis on urgency suggested that the committee viewed the current state of the Environmental Commission as requiring prompt intervention and systemic improvements to restore functionality and public engagement. ## Environmental Quality Transition Report Emma Tibbs, chair of the Environmental Quality Transition Team, presented a report outlining initial recommendations for the Environmental Quality division [timestamp: 00:09:22]. **Key Recommendations** The report included several "day one" recommendations focused on operational improvements: - Streamlining the hiring process - Improving communication with the mayor's office - Reinstating director meetings - Strengthening development plan review procedures **Technology and Transparency Opportunities** The presentation also highlighted opportunities for technology integration to enhance public transparency within the division's operations. **Outcome** This agenda item was presented as informational, with no formal action or debate recorded. ## Environmental Policy Report Susan Bush, Director of Environmental Policy, presented an overview of the division's work across four primary areas: public education, compliance assistance, enforcement, and environmental initiatives. The presentation highlighted several key programs: - **Neighborhood Sustainability Grant** — supporting community-based environmental projects - **ECHO Art Grants** — funding arts initiatives with environmental components - **Government Building Retrofit Program** — improving energy efficiency in public facilities Bush emphasized the use of energy management software, specifically EnergyCap, as a tool for reducing utility costs across government operations. The presentation was informational in nature, with no formal debate or concerns documented. The outcome was to provide the meeting attendees with an update on the Environmental Policy division's current activities and priorities. ## Environmental Commission Background Paul Swoveland, chair of the Environmental Commission, presented an overview of the commission's history, current operational challenges, and strategic goals [timestamp: 1:03:55]. **Key Points Presented** Swoveland outlined the commission's existing structure and highlighted several areas requiring attention and improvement. He emphasized three primary needs for the commission's future effectiveness: - Increased membership to expand the commission's capacity and reach - Enhanced administrative support to improve operational efficiency - Stronger integration with the Urban County Council through the Environmental Quality Committee **Focus Areas** The presentation addressed the commission's current challenges and articulated goals for strengthening its role within the local government structure. Swoveland stressed the importance of establishing better connections between the Environmental Commission and the broader county council framework. **Outcome** This agenda item was informational in nature, with Swoveland providing the council with background information on the Environmental Commission's status and needs. No formal action or decision was required from this presentation. ## Proprietary Funds Financials The committee discussed indirect cost percentages applied to various enterprise funds during this agenda item. [timestamp: 0:21:17] **Presentation Overview** Emma Tibbs presented information on indirect cost allocations across multiple proprietary funds. The discussion centered on the cost percentages being charged to different enterprise operations. **Key Figures Discussed** The committee reviewed indirect cost percentages from two categories of enterprise funds: - Urban Services District and Sanitary Sewer Fund: 25% indirect cost allocation - Water Quality Management and Landfill Funds: 16.65% indirect cost allocation **Concerns Raised** The discussion highlighted concerns regarding fund usage and transparency related to these indirect cost allocations. Committee members focused on understanding how these percentages were applied and their impact on the respective enterprise funds. **Outcome** This agenda item was presented for informational purposes, with no formal action taken. The discussion provided the committee with an overview of the current indirect cost structure for proprietary funds. ## Items Referred to Committee The committee was formally charged with reviewing matters related to the Department of Environmental Quality and its divisions, in accordance with Council Rules & Procedures, Section 2.102(1). [timestamp: 00:08:08] Blues presented information on the committee's responsibilities, which include oversight of partner agencies and coordination with the Environmental Commission. This agenda item was presented as informational in nature, establishing the scope of the committee's authority and jurisdiction over environmental quality matters. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Motion to adjourn the meeting --- ## Full transcript Music Thank you. guitar solo guitar solo guitar solo Committee members, it is a little bit after 1 o'clock, so if we could gather around the horseshoe and get this meeting going. We do have a quorum, and so let us call the meeting to order. This is the second meeting of the year of the Environmental Quality Committee, and our charge is to deal with matters relating to the Department of Environmental Quality and its divisions and any related partner agencies. And we have three major items today on our agenda, a report from the Environmental Quality Transition Team, which was submitted to Mayor Gray's office, the Environmental Policy Report, and Susan Bush, the Director of Environmental Policy, will come forward with that. And then we will hear from the Environmental Commission. What I think we'll do this afternoon is give each of the reporting entities up to 15 minutes to report to the council, to the committee, rather, and then to give committee members up to 15 minutes to answer or to ask questions and to discuss issues which may come up in the course of the discussions. So with that, let me bring forward Ms. Emma Tibbs, who chaired the Environmental Quality Transition Team. We're very grateful to you and to the members of that team. It was all volunteer, and I know they did a lot of work. We appreciate your being here. and we look forward to hearing your take on the particular issues and the priorities that do you think need to be attended to. So with that, let's begin. Thank you. Good afternoon, Council, and I appreciate the opportunity to come and talk with you a little bit about the transition report. You saw on the front of the report who was on our committee, and also Councilmember Steve Kaye joined us for, I guess, almost all of those meetings. Very fortunate to have the team that we did. They all knew about the sewer and the water issues that we were going to discuss. discuss, and so that made things easier. In addition, the people that we were charged with interviewing were some of the best employees of government, so we were very fortunate all the way around. At the time we did the, at the time the transition team, environmental quality transition team, began doing their work and interviewing and writing the report and submitting it, Judge Forster had not yet signed the consent decree, so I suppose that's one thing you ought to keep in mind when you read this. In addition, I have met with Commissioner Taylor and her group and also Charlie Martin and his group to go over the report. Let me say how we arrived at the way we wanted to do this report. We received, if you all have looked at the questionnaire that the administration sent out, it is extremely comprehensive. So we had a voluminous amount of material to go through and then to sort through what we thought was going to be important to put in this report. We wanted to name the top three, four, five bullets, as we call them, that were important immediately for the mayor upon taking office to deal with. Also, there were going to be some changes brought about by EPA that might create some additional costs to the urban county government. So that was mentioned. The things we asked, the three people that we interviewed were Charlie Martin, Susan Bush, and Steve Feese. and I know you all are familiar with who they are and what they do. We asked them what was the most frustrating thing about their job, what kind of communication did they have with the government, the administration, what were the biggest problems that they had, and there were a number of other things with respect to specific things in their divisions. If you have read this report, you will know that all said that HR was a major, major problem. And as we listened to them talk, it became a great concern to us that it would take anywhere from a year in water quality or environmental policy to hire someone from the time that request went to HR by the time they actually saw the person could be as long as a year. In waste management, it was up to four months. And I know when I was meeting with Commissioner Taylor and her folks the other day, three drivers in waste management had quit the week before. So these things get to be huge issues. Additionally, if you looked at the acronym SWOT, S-W-O-T, we used that all the way through. We were impressed with Susan Bush's, the way she did hers that stood for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. And we wanted to make our report indicate all of those things. One of the, obviously the strengths were in all of these areas were the personnel, the people who were running these divisions and the people that we were interviewing. We were very impressed with all of them. In addition to HR, which was a major complaint, another area was the lack of communication with the mayor's office. And I'm not talking about the current mayor. We were talking about it previously. And the problem there was they no longer had directors' meetings. and the people in all three of these divisions felt that directors meetings had been very, very beneficial. It is a layer of management below the commission level where they meet together and discuss what's going on in the government with each other. They would like to see those reinstituted, And I understand that maybe the CAO is moving in that direction and probably is going to talk to you all about that. In a statement on page three here, it says, directors arguably carry the largest influence over the performance of government. Thus, communication between the administration and the director layer of management is critical and should not simply stop at the level of the commissioner. Another big issue here was the lack of review by water quality and waste management and all that with respect to development plans. As some of you will remember, I know Bill will and I know Linda will, several years ago, for whatever reason, the urban county government decided to no longer have the government's engineers sign off on these development plans. And that the developer's engineer would actually have the final say over the development plan approval. I can remember asking the then mayor, how could you do that? You know, how could the government not have the last word? And she said to me, well, these people surely wouldn't risk their license, you know, by saying, by doing something that was inappropriate. Well, when we looked at some of these things, we saw that no developer or developer engineer had ever been charged with any, what should I say, mismanagement or whatever, Chairman Blues, for lack of a better term. But that was a real concern to our team, that the government, we felt the government should have a final say. And it's not that the government's going to have the people to look, oversee every single development plan they want. But they could sure put in some system where even if it's randomly done, the government would have the last say-so, the last word in that. So we think that that's something that is going to have to be dealt with. Another thing that we were very impressed with was the kind of software that all of these divisions are now using or are in the process of implementing. There's in water quality, there's a program called, I guess, is it GPS? It's called Accela. They are in the process of implementing now that, and that will allow them to see. It's a dashboard metrics kind of thing that allows them to look at what all they're doing in water quality. If they've got a team of people out working on sewers in this area or this area, they can see all that. In addition, eventually, the idea, I think, is for the public, if it's on the Internet or wherever, for the public to see that so that they can see where their money, when they pay that sanitary sewer user fee, they can see where that money is going and how it's being spent. The same way with, and I think Susan Bush is going to talk about this, with the energy cap program that the Department of Environmental Policy has implemented. And Susan has hired an energy manager to see how energy can be saved in all the government buildings. The University of Kentucky does that, and one of the fellows that was there meeting with us one day said, the university has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by employing this system. And we were very, very interested in waste management because that's the area that we knew least about. and Steve Fease and his group have employed what's called route wear. And right now they're using it for commercial pickups. They can see where all their trucks are. Eventually, and I think in March, they want to begin using this for residential pickups. They will be able to tell where all their trucks are, how long they're staying here, how long they're staying there. We talk, we ask about, and I think Susan will tell you this too, and I think Council Member Stennett was asking about this at the last meeting, how many pickups these trucks make, what's the tonnage. One of the things we were kind of interested in was the landfill. And apparently we are edging very close to filling up our construction landfill. And if the building business had been better, we'd probably be looking already at having to find another place for a construction landfill. One of the things we wanted to know additionally was about the enterprise funds. since there's always been a big talk, a big hubbub and sort of scandal talk about what was happening to the Sanitary Cedar User Fee Fund. This is way back before the arrival of Charlie Martin. And it used to be called the Great Cache Cow here, if some of you, I know Linda and Bill Farmer probably remember that. We weren't cleaning the transmission lines with it. We were just using it for all kinds of things. So we asked the question, what are the indirect costs coming out of these funds? And we got an email from Elizabeth McGee in budgeting. The amount, the percentages out of the urban services district is 25 percent. That's indirect fees. Out of sanitary sewers is 16.65 percent. Water quality management, 16.65 percent. The landfill is 25 percent. An extended school program is 15.78 percent. So everybody knows at least where some of that money is going. I might add that you all now have, I think Julie distributed today, the meetings that will be taking place in March in the Wolf Run watershed, the East Hickman watershed, and the West Hickman watershed. And those are three meetings in March where neighbors can select which meeting they want to go to. And they're going to be learning what their money is being spent on. And those Those three watersheds right now are the ones that you all saw on the map, I guess it was last week, that are considered to have the most serious of problems with respect to sanitary serers and pump stations or sanitary sewer overflows. So you're probably getting calls from constituents wanting to know about that. And I think Charlie does those meetings. Is that right, Julie? Charlie's going to conduct those meetings. I'll be glad to answer any questions, but I want to tell you just one little anecdote, which you might find interesting. A reporter asked me after the meeting last week, or last month, when you had the Environmental Committee meeting, he said, how do you think the neighbors are going to handle having their streets torn up, all the inconvenience, dirt, everything, when they start doing all this sewer work. And here was my reply. They'll handle it a whole lot better than they did sewage backed up in their toilets, their sinks, in their basements, in water, closing streets, water up in their crawl spaces, overwhelming their furnaces. And I think you're going to find that's true. I think you're going to find that's true. They've been waiting a long time, and I think that everybody's always looking for somebody to blame. Previous administrations, previous councils, previous mayors. The truth of the matter is this is just one of those things that was probably easier to neglect. And then there came a point when we just simply didn't have the money to fix anything. So there's not really, I don't think anybody takes the blame for this. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much, committee members. If you have a question, if you would give me a signal here. Mr. Farmer. Thank you for all's work and for your presentation today. I appreciate it, and we all appreciate it very much. Any feeling from the mayor or the administration about your recommendations so far, either the day ones or the longer term things? Well, I can tell you that Commissioner Taylor is at the ground running, I think, yes. Okay. I understand there are a number of things in the works. Good. I talked to the mayor actually about HR, and they are looking far and wide. And as the mayor told me, he said, I want somebody with imagination. And if you know the mayor, that's – He means it. He means it. So they realize it's a problem. It's just it may be a problem all through government, but it's certainly with respect to environmental quality, it is a big problem. With the consent decree, as you know, the EPA doesn't care if we don't have any money, if we're short on people. They don't care. The point is you have to have work done by a specific time. You have to have a report done by a specific date. And the fines can be as much as $10,000 a day. So it is a big deal, particularly with environmental quality. Well, like I said, I appreciate your all's time and the fact that you've already, I mean, I think we'll gladly wait on the administration to bring whatever they want. Right. I think Commissioner Taylor has already made some things happen as well. And I agree with your point. There's a lot of people waiting out there. But there are still the unwashed and the uneducated who don't know or maybe have moved into a place that they don't know that has a flooding problem or what have you. But I think it is a grand awakening for many neighborhoods and neighbors in Lexington who will find that there's going to be a lot going on on their street, in their front yard, in their backyard. And I just think we just need to find the best management practices and the best opportunities and, you know, learn as we go because we're going to have to do it in all the watersheds for a long time to come. But I think it's a tremendous day for Lexington. I appreciate your help. Well, it is. And Charlie Martin and his folks with doing the assessment that was required by the EPA have already done a lot of all this preliminary stuff. They know where they actually have to dig up and where they maybe can't, and maybe there's another solution or another way to do it. I know I've got a constituent email this week that I know for a fact I was in his basement 12 years ago. And he's had a backup this week. And, you know, 12 years ago, I took my four- or five-year-old son along with me to keep people from just being really – Really mean. Now I think it's with a great deal of confidence I can say, you know, we're going to get this done. I can't tell you exactly where on the list you are, but we're going to get this fixed. I think that's the big difference that we can all take away from this. I think I was thinking this morning, this committee is going to become increasingly important as time goes on and as we continue to implement the consent decree over the next 12 years or so. But thank you all very much. Thank you, Madam. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Council Member Gorton. Vice Mayor Gorton. Emma, you're sitting down, and I'm sorry to call you back. But first of all, I want to thank you and your transition team members for all your hard work. I know what a lot of work these transition teams did. And I think it's really important for us to get a good look between administrations on the state of the departments within government. So thank you very much for your work. As I think back, and Bill Farmer probably might actually agree with me on this, that when we think back about, you know, departments and divisions within government, I can't think of one that has undergone the incredible changes and pressures, thinking of the consent decree and citizen pressures and requirements to move forward as rapidly as possible. I mean, it's pretty incredible. And I know that when Charlie Martin was showing the maps after the capacity assurance and pointed out that Zandale sewer, and how hard we fought, I can't even remember what year that was, 1999 or 2000, to get that sewer mess cleaned up, and now it's a green line. It's a good, solid sewer line. And it just has taken so much hard work, And I compliment Charlie and Susan and Cheryl on all of their work and their staff's work, because I know it's hidden to many citizens. And it's really, it's been amazing in a way, and it's a good amazing. Now, I have one question. In your meetings with waste management, I noted on page 7 at the bottom, under threats, you mentioned the fund continues to carry a substantial fund balance. Did anyone remember? I've brought this up before and no one seems to remember. When Mike Robinson was the director of the division, and they invited all council members over to see the plans for the new recycling center. And we were told that that was why we were saving money in this fund and building up a fund balance so we could pay some of it in cash. And I just wondered, at this point, you know, I don't know whatever happened to that, but we were told at the time that was why we were saving a big fund balance. And I just wondered if that came up at all. Yes, we talked about it and we asked about it, and we asked Steve Fees. we haven't found anybody that really knows about the 2005 report. So I don't know what to say about that. You saw on Steve's thing about, you know, well, we talked about why money was not taken out of that fund. And then they talked to us about bonding, that it needed to be in there so that it could improve the government's bond rating as opposed to being taken out for something else. And I've heard you all on Finance Committee talk about that before. But nobody seems to know what happened to that report. Let me just mention something. When you talked about if somebody was doing something about the concerns in this report, Bob Wiseman was on our team. You all, I know many of you know who he is. He's the vice president of the university. In fact, at one time he was commissioner of public works here at their mechanic government. But he oversees their fiscal plant, their buildings over there. A question came up about the infill and redevelopment area, about Steve and the consultant was with him. They were concerned about these large trucks trying to get into these areas to pick up waste and what a problem it was. and the question came up about using smaller vehicles, and then there was a question of cost and personnel and everything. But I think already since we've done this report, and as many of you all may know, Bob Wiseman lives in the infill area. He lives in the downtown area, I think in one of the townhouses. And that was a concern to him. But I think maybe Commissioner Taylor has already worked on that problem. So, as I said, she hit the ground running. Well, thank you for all your hard work and your team. Thanks. Thanks, Mr. Chair. And thank you very much for this report. It really does bring into sharper focus some of the issues that this committee is working with water quality and with the Department of Environmental Quality will be interested in. And I was particularly glad to see your bringing some attention to the matter of air quality, which I think you're right to say has not had the same kind of sharp focus that water quality issues have had, not that water quality is unimportant. And that's really essential that we do some work there. The matter of greenways and finding some central point where greenways can be attended to and improved because they're so essential to water quality in the city. And we haven't yet achieved that kind of administrative centrality, perhaps, that we need. So I think that you and your task force have really performed a great service to the city and to the government. and we'll be coming back to this report over time. At our next meeting, we hope to have Steve Feast here to talk about some of the issues that you raised today. And we are fortunate today to be able to follow up, Emma, with your presentation with Susan Bush, who is the Director of Environmental Policy in the Department of Environmental Quality. And we have asked her to come in and explain really how environmental policy fits in with the department, what its major functions and tasks are, and I think we'll be maybe having you back at the March meeting as well to move in closer focus on some of the things that your division does. So the next 15 minutes is all yours, and we'll be interested in what you have to say. Well, thank you very much. We certainly appreciate the opportunity to give you an overview of the Division of Environmental Policy and tell you about the programs and projects we're working on and hopefully give you a better understanding of what we're doing. I also have included in your packet, just for your information, you obviously have a copy of the PowerPoint presentation, but I've prepared a three-page summary which has just a summary of each of our major programs and key contact people, and that may be helpful to your aides as they're looking for information. Well, we have to do the obligatory organizational chart so I can show you. The Division of Environmental Policy is one of the newest divisions in government, and it's a fairly compact division with 15 employees. We currently have 13 positions filled and two vacancies. What I wanted to point out to you in this slide is that you can see that we are basically divided into major, three major programmatic areas. And those would be our compliance assistance and enforcement, which is headed by Tom Webb, many of you know. Our environmental initiative, oh, that's Woody Bottom, excuse me. And then environmental initiatives is Tom Webb, just switched you guys around there. And they're with us today. And then our education and outreach, which is Mark York. And what I'd like to do is kind of give you some examples of what each of these units are working on and what they do. Public education and outreach is where I'd like to begin, and they have a fairly broad mandate to empower our citizens with information that will allow us to have a more sustainable community. And as you can see there, we deal very closely with water quality issues. We do all the outreach for our Division of Water Quality, including that that's required by the consent decree and our stormwater permit. The second thing is we also do outreach with our Division of Waste Management. Let me just give you some examples of the various outreach efforts we have, because this division is dealing with a lot of different segments of our society, from children to citizens to businesses. So we use a lot of different techniques to educate the folks on what we're doing. One of the first ones is our grant program. We have a neighborhood sustainability grant program that many of you may be familiar with, and it's open to schools, churches, and neighborhood associations. And over the past two years, we've enabled about 50 local projects, and they all have to be focused on improving the local neighborhood's environment in some fashion. Projects have included things like this neighborhood garden to stream bank restoration and cleanup, street tree planting, new rain gardens, and we've had several urban gardens that have been established as a result of this. This has been a very successful program within our division, and we've had people tell us that neighborhoods have come together and actually met each other for the first time time to work together for a positive common goal to improve the neighborhood for the first time. So this has worked very well. This is one you may also be familiar with. I chose the one that's high visibility. It's our ECHO Art Grant Program, and this is the Made You Look, where we funded painting of 30 storm drains in the downtown area. And as a result, actually noticed Storm Dreams for the first time. And we've had a lot of positive reaction to this, and there's been a lot of other popular Echo Art grants that have been successful, such as we had an environmental concert. There's just a variety of things. So this is another way that we engage our arts community in education and outreach. then another another approach that we've been using for public outreach is participating in activities and events where we have our students and this is the Fayette County Science Fair as a matter of fact we were there this past weekend and here the students are finding the watershed that their schools are in if you recall we did a survey that 85% of our citizens didn't know what a watershed was. And so we're working with them early. Again, this is, we're working with some students. They're doing some water quality testing at Gaines Way Pond. We have a contractual arrangement with Bluegrass Pride, and as a result of that contract and the services working together, we have got water quality, energy, and waste management programming in all 60 public schools and 14 private schools. As you recall, this was a renovation project done under a 319 grant. That pond didn't look too good a few years ago, and we were able to, through that grant program, really improve it. We also do some very broad public outreach efforts with informational displays, like this one at the Kentucky American Water Open House. We also do the Home and Garden Show and events like that where we pass out information for folks. Again, this is the Green Expo. We know that people are not recycling as much as they need to. There is some confusion about what goes in our bins, so we're trying to provide useful information. And one of the things we're working on right now is increasing our recycling rates in our community. This was a pilot project that we did last summer. This is the Kame Run Watershed Festival. And we held several workshops to give residents useful information on how to improve stormwater quality. And this happens to be the one on proper lawn care practices. That's Louie Hillemeyer up there conducting that workshop. Van Kirk actually did one for proper automotive care. In other words, do not drain your oil down the storm drain, which, believe it or not, does happen. This was very successful. We had 300 people attend this. It was a neighborhood event, and a lot of people walked. We are now seeking and working with other neighborhood associations in partnership to try to develop additional watershed festivals in some of our other areas. We're also responsible for doing media campaigns to get the word out. This is the one we use to kick off the public education on stormwater, which as many of you know is the Talking Storm Drain, which we use that in print and TV ads. We also do, you know, print work. This is obviously part of our Pet Waste campaign to teach people about the impact that pet waste actually does have on your water quality. They also participated in the dog paddle event at Woodland Park and Bark in the Park with the Lexington Legends. And then we have also created our own ad in-house. This was done with governmental resources. And this is one on proper lawn care practices. And we were able to distribute this at all the retailers in town in the spring to show that, you know, so when you bought your lawn fertilizer and stuff, people pick up this brochure. And we also used that as a print ad. So that brings us to many people's favorite topic, and that's litter prevention. And very briefly, you know, litter prevention, litter is a water quality and a waste management issue. On the left, you actually have, if you could look under that storm drain, you actually have a storm drain that is choked, obviously, with cigarette butts and some trash. And then, obviously, there's a surface storm drain with a similar problem. And we probably got more and still do get more complaints on litter from the general public than anything else. People in this town do not like litter, and I don't blame them. There are approximately five different agencies within the government that work on litter cleanup, but we found that there was really no litter prevention. And so what our division did in working with Outreach and Mark York is on the commission is We worked with the Keep America Beautiful Association, and what we were able to do is have Lexington become an official affiliate. And the importance of that is now we are eligible for grants from Keep America Beautiful. It's our Keep Lexington Beautiful Commission. And we also can get free materials from them. As a matter of fact, they'll be kicking off a cigarette butt litter campaign here in the very near future. But we're very excited about that, and we're partnering with a lot of people to make that happen. Now I'm going to switch gears on you and talk about the second tier within our division, and we have compliance assistance and our enforcement program. I'm going to talk about compliance assistance first. First, compliance assistance, we basically provide in-house technical expertise to a lot of our operational divisions, and we also provide training that's required by a lot of the permits and programs that regulate everything from fuel storage to oil storage to a lot of the things that we just have normally operationally. I'll give you some examples of how we're able to help these other divisions. We developed a waste handling procedures for our Division of Waste Management. This is our electronics recycling facility where we obviously accept fluorescent bulbs. And there are regulations on how that must be done. And so we were able to go in and help them with that and train the employees appropriately. We've done an awful lot of work at the Haley Pike landfill. Here we're doing gas monitoring as waste decomposes. and that landfill's been there for a long time, since the 70s, it produces gas. And the significance of this is if it was producing enough gas, we'd have to put an active collection system in, which is a huge budgetary consideration. So we were able to do this to allow waste management to plan appropriately, and I am happy to say the levels are below that required for that expensive investment. We've also helped fleet management improve some of their spill response procedures, and we recommended stormwater control equipment to reduce their stormwater runoff. They have their own stormwater permit. The focus of this is we can save divisions time and money in helping do these things and ensure that we remain in compliance. And frankly, if we're running the enforcement program, we don't need to talk the talk. We need to walk the walk as well. So we want to make sure that our folks are in compliance with the laws that we're holding other people responsible for. The second half of this program is our enforcement program, and we handle referrals of unresolved violations from the divisions of waste management and water quality. So water quality and waste management have their own inspection staff, and they go out and inspect, but if they're not able to resolve a violation, they can refer it to us. And we are the folks that issue the civil penalties. We can issue stop work orders. And then, of course, we prepare cases that are taken to appeal before either the infrastructure or the Environmental Hearing Board. To give you an example of some of the programs we're doing the enforcement on is the new erosion and sediment control ordinance became effective last month. And here you can see that there are some issues that need to be taken care of. And as a matter of fact, that upper left-hand picture is a storm drain underneath the debris. So that's one area where we work. We also do enforcement of illicit discharges to the sanitary sewer system. We've had situations as spectacular as a broken lateral line intercepting a stream, and all the creek water is going into the sanitary sewer system and causing overflows downstream. So you can see those are the main areas we're providing enforcement in. We also inspect all of our solid waste facilities and perform follow-up compliance inspections. And again, many of you have seen the improper set-outs, and those are the type of violations we work on for the Division of Waste Management as well as ROCART violations. The new enforcement ordinance that you all passed, the Council passed back in October of 2009, thereabouts, is when that began. You can see that the referrals have ramped up. We got to start with a clean slate because we were new at the enforcement. But one of the things I want to point out to you is that the majority of the violations that have been referred to us are resolved. As a matter of fact, one of the things I want to make sure that's very clear is we are very focused on compliance. That's where the rubber hits the road, and so far we have a compliance rate of 91 percent because infective enforcement, you know, it reduces pollution before it occurs in many cases and it protects private property and it just makes this a much better community to live in. All right. That wraps up the environmental enforcement and compliance assistance. And now I'm going to end with the Environmental Initiatives group. And this group has a very broad array of projects they're working on. And I'd like to share some of the major projects with you. First is our brownfield initiative. As many of you know, brownfields are, just as it says up there, underutilized properties where redevelopment has not occurred because either somebody thinks it's contaminated or it is contaminated. We were successful in securing Lexington's first brownfield grant for petroleum products. We are working with our planning division. We're hopeful that this will help stimulate infill and redevelopment in areas of our city. This is just a before and after I was able to locate where cities have been very, very successful utilizing brownfield's money money to revitalize areas and basically return land to productive uses and on the tax rolls. Now let's talk about our carbon footprint. And this kind of ties in with the air quality issue that Councilmember Blues mentioned. Because carbon footprint is related to energy consumption and air quality, and so I want to talk about that just a little bit here. Environmental policy is spearheading our community's first climate action plan, and we're working with a group of stakeholders from across our community to do that. The plan is being developed using the nationally recognized ICLEI local governments for sustainability model. That's a national model. And to show you where we are, we've completed our greenhouse gas baseline emissions inventory. We used 2007 to establish our baseline. Again, we're working with the stakeholder team to develop a draft action plan, and then that draft plan will be subject to public comment and come before the Urban County Council for consideration and hopefully approval. This also is another area that we're working in that's very exciting, is our energy conservation projects. Right now, as you're well aware, we have a $2.7 million grant from the Department of Energy, the stimulus money, that has funded a lot of these energy grants. I want to just go over a few of them with you. The Community Home Energy Advisor, that is a program where we're providing residents and businesses with practical information on energy conservation measures and how they can qualify for a lot of these. It's very complicated sometimes when you try to get energy credits and tax credits and provide advice to folks on that. We also have a free web-based utility tracking where you can go online and businesses and homes can track their utilities to see how they're doing on energy conservation. And then we have Energizing the Arts, which we just announced five nonprofits were receiving grants in order to make their facilities more energy efficient. And that was just announced a couple of weeks ago. So these are things we're doing out in the community to improve energy efficiency, which reduces the amount of greenhouse gases that are emitted and saves people money. Another exciting thing we're working on right now is our government building retrofit program, and our energy manager is spearheading this retrofit. We're spending about $1.1 million of grant monies on this, And the two buildings selected were obviously one was the Black and Williams Community Center, and then the second one is the Dunbar Center. What I want to make sure that a take-home from this is that we have established an energy efficiency fund. You know, we could use these grant monies, make the improvements, and the improvements are made and the cost savings are realized, and then you're done. But what we did when we filed for the grant with the U.S. government is we agreed to establish an energy improvement fund, which the savings from these retrofits will go into that fund and allow us to continue to make additional energy improvements in our governmental buildings with this fund, and we've made the first deposit into that fund recently. Another component of energy is energy management, and this is where having an energy manager has yielded some very positive results. We spend about $11 million annually on our utilities, and our energy manager can monitor our utility use through what we call EnergyCap, which Mitch Tibbs mentioned earlier. EnergyCap is an energy management software, and he also reviews bills and rate structures to ensure they're accurate and appropriate. Now, let me tell you a little bit about that. These are screenshots actually from EnergyCap, and you can imagine the government has hundreds of accounts. So it allows you to audit utility bills very quickly to just identify abnormal spikes in cost and use, which would be too labor-intensive to do manually. It also allows you to identify demand spikes that you can investigate further, and in this case they found that the fleet waste management site at Bird-Thurman was double billed to the tune of $1,400. on this particular one. And so we were able to identify that and correct it. And then it allows you to do some overall building energy management. This is obviously for the Phoenix building, which shows you that, you know, the usage is down 22 percent, but costs are only down 12 percent. And you look, but rates have risen 14. So it gives you an overall look at the picture of how you're doing, particularly when you start doing retrofits. These are all just handy management tools that can really help you save a lot of money. Some real quick success stories. He identified favorable tariff rates for our traffic signals, which will save us about $82,000 annually. We have 83 natural gas accounts that we were able to bundle into one and bid out, which you'll realize a cost savings of about $100,000 a year. And this is a moving target, obviously, but we've identified around $50,000 in just various billing errors throughout the government. As a matter of fact, billing errors can be quite significant. In one instance, and this is not up here, there was a billing error because of those pesky decimal points can sometimes get you into trouble. a bill came in for $198,000, which that was a little bit more than it should have been in that case. So we were able to find that and work with General Services. They flagged that one as well. So as you can see, energy management is worthwhile, and I think it's paying dividends, and it's something we've needed for a long time. So with that, I'll turn it over to you all for questions. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you very much, committee members. Do you have any questions? One question that I have, and maybe it's a little more of a comment here, But I think that your presentation demonstrates quite well that in order for us to do all that we must do to improve our water and air quality, we're not only going to have to have compliance and enforcement, we're going to have to have community involvement. and that environmental policy is going to be really responsible for spearheading that kind of initiative because unless the public works with us to help clean up and to eliminate litter, for example, we're just not going to be able to do it. And so we not only have to ask our citizens to contribute the dollars, the sanitary user fee, the water quality management fee, but also their own efforts, also their own awareness of what happens when you discard that potato chip wrapper or toss that cigarette butt into the street. So this is a very helpful presentation to bring that kind of awareness into focus. Council Member Henson has a question. Thank you, Chair. Susan, thank you for the presentation. And I didn't want you to go away and me not tell you how much you guys just do such a fantastic job. and I love all the time we spend together. But I think one point would be very important. I know with the consent decree, everything was out in the open and everyone was hitting it with full force. And I just don't want it to become a time where we get very comfortable and the awareness decreases. I want it, you know, and I think that you guys are very, very good at what you do and getting the word out to the community and getting involvement. But the more and more and more we do, we have to get to a place to where it is or should be the most important thing to our city, our environment, our health, our children, and so forth. And it needs to be embedded in all of our citizens. What we're really driving for, and it's probably the most difficult thing to accomplish, but you always work towards it, is we're working towards a cultural change. Exactly. And so that takes time, and it's a constant effort. You're right, and you can't just do the same old thing over and over again. I couldn't agree with you more. Okay. Thank you. And thank you once again for helping us to understand what environmental policy really does for us. My pleasure. Our third major agenda item is a presentation from the Environmental Commission. Since the Commission will be reporting to and working with this committee, we thought it would be a good idea to have a presentation that helps us to better understand who the environmental commissioners are and what they do. I know that this commission in one form or another has been around for at least the last 40 years, so it has a long and important history. So Mr. Paul Swoveland, who is the chair of the commission, will report to us. So the next 15 minutes is yours. And you may want to introduce some of the other officers and members of the commission who I know are here with you today. Thank you very much. Yes, I would like to introduce my support behind me here. We have Mr. Steve Garland. We have Megan Campbell-Smith and Sandy Camargo and Helen Weisinger, also one of our longstanding members, is here also. So they'll help answer any questions as we go forward. What I want to do is thank you for the invitation to speak with this committee. We view this as an exciting opportunity to dialogue with the committee on the Urban County Council and confirm the purpose and importance of the Environmental Commission. The public interest in efficient, sustainable environmental policy calls for more comprehensive oversight of the environmental quality concerns affecting our community. The members of the EEC agree with the Council that there is significant need for public input and that our local government can address these with existing structures. Our members are concerned citizens, a diverse group of amateurs and professionals in the business of enhancing environmental quality. We are comprised of planners, architects, engineers, including LEED certified energy professionals, people who have strong interest and long-term interest in the community. Many of us have experienced credentials in the management of environmental quality issues and are all volunteers appointed through the office of the mayor. In our 40-year history, we have developed and supported numerous programs to address significant shortfalls in the endeavors for a better environment. We have created the litter card campaigns, started some of the McConnell Springs cleanups and development. We were the initial Keep America Beautiful cleanup committee a long time ago. And we've put together programs such as voluntary battery recycling, the Preston Springs cleanup, as well as supporting the other spring trails projects and still working on some of that. and a number of projects that have been successfully transitioned to and sustained by either the local government or nonprofit environmental action organizations. Over the past few years, we have come to realize that the purpose of the EC needs reinforcement. It is important to remember that as a volunteer commission with a budget sufficient only for our signature event, which is the annual Environmental Commission Awards, we must be self-directed to meet needs where our strengths can affect the most positive change. Recently, we've been working on developing a public relations campaign to create and distribute news articles about activities of Lexington and Fayette County environmental action groups. This new program is a media campaign to raise awareness of the environmental issues, give recognition to volunteers who improve our community, and assist in what we view as a new public awareness issue, eco-literacy. You'll hear a lot more about that as time goes. The need for our young citizens to be highly aware of environmental issues as they will shape the future of our commerce and politics. We view the activities and volunteerism of the Environmental Commission and its long history of engaging professionals and politicians in the enhancement of our environment to be essential in the development of the environmental action and policy of today. Is our membership's long belief that our citizenry will benefit from a more comprehensive analysis of the environmental quality issues that come before the Council? While the LFUCG has made many important strides in this direction, the Council has lacked use of an active citizen environmental advisory board to review proposed actions and environmental impacts and long-term cost-benefit assessments. The EC views volunteer citizen oversight of and engagement with environmental impact issues to be paramount to the future of our community. For these reasons, we ask that the outcome from today's meeting be the reinforcement of the charter of the Environmental Commission to reflect the new oversight and enforcement needs of today. We believe the language states that the Environmental Commission is the official advisory board to the Urban County Council and that our membership and fiduciary responsibilities be upheld by the elected representatives of each district, especially those where membership and participation has somewhat fallen behind. Okay, so that's my written comments I wanted to make. And I also would like to review kind of what's going on for some basic overviews. Our commission is allowed to have 40 members. We currently have four members officially still with active appointments. We have about 20 members who have been active over a long number of years that have not necessarily been reactivated with the past administration. So there's a membership issue that we would like to help get solved with the help of the council so that the representatives can nominate people to be part of the commission and to represent their districts. some of the things we see ourselves as being an advocate for public interest in the environmental area. We work closely with the environmental quality in the policy departments here within the city so that we have a lot of input there, but we would like to share more of our concerns and our information with the council through this committee. So we would like to entertain a little more direct involvement with this committee also. Some of the things that we've done, I think we have two slides. I'd like to share with you. Okay. This is some pictures to kind of help show what we've been doing here lately. The Environmental Commission puts on our annual awards, and this is what we're best known for. And what you'll see is we do this at the Green Breakfast in the fall. We've had a number of presenters from state politics, local politics, from the universities and other green groups. And we have also given awards to recognize and to raise awareness of what the different green groups are doing around the city. and on the bottom of that slide the last couple pictures at the bottom showed some of the things we were doing was the historic preservation signs that we've been working to either have established in different areas of the city we've been sponsoring some of these historic preservation signs dealing with the Preston Springs and renovating an old sign that was in the wrong place. And so we were working on getting more public recognition of some of these treasures that are really here within the city. Okay, on the next slide, what we have is just to demonstrate our active support and education process, such things as putting together booths at Arbor Day, at the Cane Run Water Festival, at the Green Expo in the fall. We put together tables showing posters and displays of what projects are going on, what other green groups are doing around the city, and so that we can encourage the public to be aware of what's happening and get their input on what they think needs to happen further. We meet on a monthly basis. The volunteers meet in public locations every Monday, first Monday of each month, and generally in the public library of some place in the city. We determine that. We have a discussion on water current topics and try to come up with how we can help promote things that are going on. It's an all-volunteer commission. Keeping up with websites, keeping up with the membership listings and things gets somewhat cumbersome on our volunteer staff at this point. But we are aware of some of these, this information needs that we need, and we're also looking for possibly some support in that area from the city if we can identify different ways to help organize ourselves a little better also as we go forward. Okay. That's a quick overview of who the Environmental Commission is and what we've been doing. I'd be happy to entertain any questions that you may have. Thank you very much. And I think Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Dr. Chair. Thank you, Paul. I really appreciate what the Environmental Commission does. I've been involved in little ways for about 12 years, And I do have a concern to hear about your membership or need for more members. And I wonder if you are a commission where people can go on the website and apply for membership on the commission. Most of our boards and commissions are on there. and folks can fill out an application to serve, and then that application goes to the mayor's office. And I don't know if you've – I haven't looked on there specifically for the Environmental Commission, but I would think it's on there as a commission for the citizens to apply to serve. Are you – do you know – and ask for anybody who wants to be involved to contact us, and we'll help them go through that application process. I don't know whether we're... I guess I'm wondering if you could put the LFUCG link, the LexingtonKY.gov link, where our boards and commissions are for applicants to go. Megan, do you want to comment? Yes, I can help answer that question. There is an application for the Environmental Commission on the LexingtonKY.gov website. One of the problems that we've had over the past few years was while we actively recruited new members and had them submit applications, their applications were ignored and not addressed. So our membership problem seems to be an administrative problem rather than the passion and activism of our volunteers who show up each month. Well, I would just say to that that we have a new administration, and I know it's very important to Mayor Gray to fill our boards and commissions with people who want to serve, and he's very interested in the people applying. So if there are folks who've applied in the past and they have not heard anything back, I would highly recommend that they now reapply because I know that the administration is actively looking at that. And they're very interested in getting a broad representation of our community to serve on our boards and commissions. That's great. Well, that's the message we'll tell them. And I don't know if there's a way you can link it to your website, to the lexingtonky.gov to go to our link for applications. That would maybe be helpful, because I would like to see you get to where you have more full complement of members. So thank you for all that you've been doing. Okay, thank you. Just to make it clear, our website is actually within the Lexington KYGov structure. Okay. And so that has some benefits to us as far as support, but it also has given us lots of hindrances on ability to make changes ourselves. So we are in the process of revamping what our website needs are and how to better get information and connections to other processes that are currently in place. Well, that place on our city website gets applications on a regular basis. So if you can link into it, I think it will be helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you. Just to add to what Vice Mayor Gordon said, and for those of you who may be watching this meeting on television and have an interest in joining the commission, if you go to the website, you'll see on the homepage a line that says, I want to, dot, dot, dot. And if you hit that line, you'll see a drop-down menu, and one of the items will be become a member of a board or commission. And you can hit that, and the application forms will appear, and you can follow the instructions on the screen and send in those applications. And I think we can guarantee that if those applications and inquiries have been ignored in the past, that will not happen again. We certainly do need, we were talking a few moments ago about the need for public input in our environmental concerns, and we need to have strong commissions such as yours, and so we'll be happy to work with you to do what we can to make the environmental commission a real force for education and involvement and improvement, along with our other environmental entities, such as the Green Space Commission, for example, which plays a very important role, along with the Free Board. So we really appreciate your coming down today to tell us what the Commission does and to tell us what the Commission would like to be able to do, you know, with more membership and more encouragement encouragement, and we look forward to strengthening the links between your organization and the urban county government so that we can make some things happen. So thank you very much. Council members, if there are no other questions for Mr. Swarvelin, thank you again for being here. I have one request. I have Helen is one of our longtime members, and her husband was a longtime member before his passing, and she would like to say a few words to the committee if that would be possible. Well, welcome. Thank you. Yes, that's a little bit. Thank you. Maybe you can hear me. I have been very much involved since my husband's death in 2006. And, of course, I lived with it for quite a while while he was a member. What I have tried to do is to complete some things that he was very much involved in. When McConnell Springs was first being put together, he was very active. He was on the board. He was instrumental in helping getting the banks to work with it. And I can go on for a very long time, but I am currently trying to put together a piece of the historic development in that area, and that is Preston Cave Spring. I confess, I am a Preston, and I know my history. In 1775, Colonel William Preston came in with that group of pioneers. He was the military outlook for safe places for people to come. After all, we wanted people at that time. So I became involved in August of 2008 with Corman Railway to see if we could get a trail along from McConnell Springs to Preston Springs, about 1,900 feet. It has been a very long, drawn-out effort, believe me. And we are at the point, though, where Mr. Corman has found some land that he will exchange for. He will allow us to use a right-of-way along the rail. I have walked that railway from McConnell Springs when this McConnell Springs was getting developed. Jim Redmond and my husband and I walked along there. until we came to a place to climb down over a large rock embankment, which actually protects that Preston Cave where the water resurfaces from Monconeau's bubbly one. And I could get down alone. And, of course, I had Jim and my husband lifted me down so that I could walk the area. I have walked it again, not in that fashion. We were able, after 1988, when that particular part of the land there was deeded to Fayette County, it has belonged to Fayette County longer than McConnell Springs. Macaulay Springs was not until 1992. And Fayette County has never really attended to the care that was needed for Preston Cave. It is in a neighborhood now. The 12 1⁄2 acres that were needed in 1988, there is an entrance area from the street on Dunkirk. That area was also a part of the original 1,000 acres that the colonel was entitled to. He was the official surveyor for Virginia at that time. The colony of Virginia, I believe, is the technical term. And we finally have recaptured that historic sign, had it in the foundry for six months this last year, and now it is there at the edge of the entrance to what is officially that 12 and a half acre cave spring. What I am wondering is, over the years, the only cleanups or only care that went toward that particular park, yes, it was given to Fad County on November the 23rd in 1988, but the parks have never attended to it. And I would like to know if the parks and all the other things we're trying to combine to work with, if that could be included for periodic cleanups. All of the parks need attention, particularly the new pathways. They have to be kept going. They're going to have to have care. and I would like very much to hope that Preston K. would be included in that care picture. Thank you very much. Well, thank you very much for bringing that to our attention and look forward to working with you on seeing what we can do, not only to perhaps clean up the area, but also to bring it to public attention. That would be very helpful. And thank you also for mentioning Mr. Redman's involvement, because Jim Redman, who is also here today, has been a key member of the Environmental Commission and of the environmental community in Lexington. And we do want to say how much we appreciate his work and his involvement. So thank you again. One more thing. We are working very closely with Corman Railway. And while Mr. Corman apparently is a very careful negotiator for what he wants, I believe there was a meeting today that concerned the land that he's interested in and how that might work out. As soon as we know that, then we can pull together all the water qualities, hopefully, in Fayette County along that original line of water, from McConnell Springs to Cave Spring and then on to Wolf Run and the town branch. That's what we're looking at. and Preston Cave is the only one where the waters have not been tested and where it is not kept clean. I'll hush. Well, thank you again, and look forward to learning more about this and perhaps making it a significant project. Thank you very much. We'd be happy to come back and give you more information in the future as we go. Thank you. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Chair. This has to do with both what was just spoken about in terms of commission memberships and maybe a larger question. But I wonder if it's appropriate to suggest to the administration, knowing that they're interested in making it easier for citizens to become part of commissions and to be more timely, if it's appropriate to review those, if there's a backlog for this particular commission, if people have applied, they've never been responded to, if it's appropriate to suggest to the administration that one of the first orders of business be to, review those and move forward on them, and more generally with the boards and commissions if there's a backlog. And a second comment, I went, while people were speaking, I went to the website, and what's interesting is you can, in fact, get information about applying on commissions, but then you have to print out the application and mail or fax it in. It seems to me we ought to be able to do it all online. So just a couple of thoughts. Thank you. Thank you, and I will talk to Linda Taylor about this, who is working on in the mayor's office with receiving applications for boards and commissions, preparing mayor's reports, and so forth. So thank you again. Committee members, I have included in the packet the financials. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Peggy. Council Member Henson. That's fine. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to comment on Preston Cave, where the entrance to that is in the Cardinal Valley neighborhood, which is in the 11th District. and we've participated in a couple of cleanups in the last probably couple of years. So it is starting to get some attention. And we participated with Friends of Wolf Run Creek in one cleanup, and I know they have done some water testing. actually the water there is cleaner within Preston Springs, Preston Caves than it is out near the park area. But the vegetation there is much greater and allows the water to get more nutrients. but I just wanted to say that I would be more than happy to work with you in any way I can to see that the spring gets the attention it deserves. I played there as a child, and I appreciate you bringing that forward. Okay? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Committee members, we did include in the packet the financial reports for information. I'm not sure we have anybody from budget or revenue here if there are questions. And if there is no other business to come before the committee this afternoon, entertain a motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor?